Artist Statement | Remixes and Samples Series |The paintings in Joshua Brennan’s Remixes and Sample (aka Doppelgängers) series manifest as complex palimpsests. Some evoke the era of painterly abstract expressionism. Others, with graffiti-esque surfaces undulate between sleek and homely, full of buffing and erasure, relate to defaced walls and advertisements found in any urban environment. The push and pull of typographic abstraction is in constant flux. Some letterforms are intact; others totally blown apart, do not yield their messages. Slipping glimpses of figuration and unredeemed landscapes lie within the compositions waiting to be discovered. These billboards were originally large, obtrusive advertisements, which hung high in the sky to manipulate the consumer. Now, each appropriated fragment has the ability to communicate something else, in a new way. Ultimately, they are free to move forward and subvert their original intentions as a crass advertisement and bring a moment of beauty into an otherwise harsh realm.